Chapter 171: The League of Woe-Begotten Wives

Harrenhal, the master's chambers in the main keep.

The candlelight was dim; Sansa wept while holding the "mother" she had not seen for nearly a year.

But Lady Stoneheart remained unmoved; she was struggling to recall matters related to her eldest daughter.

Since her resurrection, she could barely remember things from the past.

Arthur stood beside them, wary of his mother-in-law, who could no longer be considered human.

Lady Catelyn Stark had previously been known for her generosity and kindness, and the Tully family motto, "Family, Duty, Honor," was etched into her mind. After she married Duke Eddard, she performed her duties as a wife even more strictly; every letter from Littlefinger was thrown into the hearth by her without being opened.

In her eyes, there was only her husband and her five children.

But after being resurrected as Lady Stoneheart, her temperament changed drastically; her former generosity became cruelty, and she frequently ordered the members of her brotherhood to attack innocent commoners.

Arthur could not gauge her temperament, so he was constantly on guard against her doing anything strange to his wife.

Sansa cried for a long time before finally recovering; she rubbed her red, swollen eyes and then gently stroked the large scar on her mother's neck.

"Does it hurt? Can you speak?"

Lady Stoneheart covered her neck with her stiff hands and rasped, "You caused the death of Eddard, my husband, your father."

Sansa shook her head like a little girl, "No, no. It was that damned Joffrey who had Father killed."

Recalling the event, she only felt she had been wrong to reveal that her father was about to leave King's Landing, but her father's death was carried out by the King's Justice, under Joffrey's orders.

"You caused the death of my husband, your father."

Lady Stoneheart merely repeated the words coldly.

Of course, one could not blame her; she had no body heat to begin with.

Seeing her mother accuse her like this, Sansa tried to explain again, but Catelyn, who had become a "fire wight," remained completely unmoved.

In Lady Stoneheart's mind, only hatred remained.

The two stood in a stalemate for a long time, until Lady Stoneheart could no longer suppress her rage; she stiffly raised her arm, preparing to slap her daughter.

Fortunately, Arthur, who had been prepared, held her back.

"Sansa was indeed wrong in that matter, but she was just a child then, with her heart set on marrying the Prince to become Queen; it was entirely the behavior of a foolish girl, so let us not be too harsh on her."

The King pulled Lady Stoneheart to one side, letting her sit in a chair, while signaling for Sansa to stay further away.

"Mother, I..." Miss Stark wanted to say something to exonerate herself, but when she thought of how her father had indeed died because of her, she fell silent.

Until she remembered the pressing matter at hand.

"Mother, Arthur wants to take another wife to stabilize the kingdom's rule, and I do not wish to share my husband with other women... What do you think should be done?"

Sansa voiced her confusion to Lady Stoneheart.

She had previously known that the Princess of Martell had an improper relationship with Arthur, but because the Dornishmen were always a bit chaotic in their relationships between men and women, and Arthur had already vowed to marry her, she had pretended not to know.

Arthur watched the mother and daughter, not interjecting much.

Lady Stoneheart had been a deeply devout follower of the Seven in life; Duke Eddard had specifically built a small sept for her in Winterfell so that his wife could pray.

Sansa had also followed her mother in believing in the Seven when she was young, but later, while in King's Landing, she began to recall things from The North and attempted to convert to the Old Gods.

"I cannot control others, as long as you have only one husband," Lady Stoneheart said coldly.

Sansa was a bit dissatisfied with her mother's words, "Do you think it is normal for a husband to have two wives? If you search through the history of Westeros, you won't find such a person!"

The candlelight dimmed; Arthur looked back and saw that one candle had burned down into a puddle of wax.

So he walked over, took out a spare candle, and relit it.

Then Arthur said to his wife, "There are such cases; Aegon I the Conqueror, he had two wives, and those two were his sisters."

As far as he knew, Sansa was actually not that pedantic and was not particularly devout toward either the Seven or the Old Gods; her refusal to accept him marrying Margaery was likely because she felt it was shameful.

After all, this Miss Stark was quite vain.

"Roose Bolton killed my son." As soon as her enemy was mentioned, Lady Stoneheart's tone became fiercely intense, "As long as you kill all the Boltons, I will not let Sansa make things difficult for you over these trifles."

She stared fixedly at her son-in-law, who was working near the candelabra.

Seeing Lady Stoneheart make such a declaration, Arthur immediately swore to the gods: "I will surely exterminate the entire Bolton house, including Roose Bolton and his bastard, the 'Bastard' Ramsay Snow."

The Bolton house had an even smaller population than the Stark family; the main branch consisted only of these two.

As for the Lady of Hornwood, Donella Manderly, she had already been starved to death by the Bastard, and Walda Frey would be easy to deal with—just send her off to become one of the Silent Sisters.

"What do you intend to do?" Lady Stoneheart asked.

Arthur explained some of his ideas to the two; pacifying The North would require at least an army of ten thousand, and it would need a general with outstanding strategic talent—Randyll Tarly was just right.

"Is there enough time?" Sansa gestured vaguely in a direction; she intended to point toward the Mountains of the Moon, but she could not distinguish north from south, "Even the high mountains near the Bloody Gate are starting to snow; by the time you conquer the Westerlands, the North should be completely covered in snow."

Autumn would last for nearly a year, and winter would be even longer.

If this window of time were missed, one would either have to let the soldiers march through the wind and snow across the vast lands of The North, or wait until the next long summer arrived.

And Westeros had just experienced its longest summer; if nothing unexpected happened, the coming long winter would last at least two or three years.

"I will never allow the Boltons to pass this winter in peace; you must quickly dispatch Lord Randyll's army."

Lady Stoneheart growled.

She stood up, the dim candlelight shining on her pale skin, making her look just like a ghost.

"But King's Landing is not safe either; The Vale has not yet clearly pledged loyalty to anyone."

The pacification of the Westerlands was only a matter of time, and the Stormlands did not pose much trouble; Doran Martell had been watching from the sidelines for so long, it was time for him to send his troops.

The only uncertain factor was The Vale, which remained strong and well-equipped; they could also threaten the south from the sea.

After pacing back and forth a few times, Lady Stoneheart made up her mind, "I can make a trip to The Vale; Lady Lysa must send troops to kill all the Boltons, otherwise I will kill Littlefinger to show her."

She had lost her husband and no longer cared whether her sister had a man or not.

Arthur looked at his mother-in-law and felt that she and Lysa could indeed form a "League of Woe-Begotten Wives."

"If The Vale sends troops to The North, our progress can be greatly accelerated. You can set off as soon as possible, and I will return to King's Landing immediately. Once Lady Lysa clearly commits to sending troops, Randyll can also go to White Harbor by sea; the armies of the two houses will be enough to defeat the coalition of the Boltons and the Dustins."

Currently, the main forces on the Bolton side were just these two houses; even adding the newly conscripted peasant soldiers and the soldiers of other minor houses, the total would not even reach ten thousand.

In the south, the Stormlands have the Reachmen under Balon Swann, and Dorne is also a party that can be won over; they can also attack the Stormlands. Plus, with the Golden Company and Stannis wearing each other down, time is still on Arthur's side.

Lady Stoneheart reluctantly agreed to this arrangement, and they discussed it for half the night under the candlelight, finally setting the entire sequence of actions.

When the sun rises tomorrow, a team of inconspicuous soldiers will quietly send Lady Stoneheart to The Vale.

Before the Northmen went home, they had left a guard for Sansa, and a dozen or so soldiers among them will be picked to do this.

……

The Stormlands, outside Griffin's Roost.

The huge bonfire had been burning for a day and a night, during which Aegon VI ordered people to add firewood several times, but it still did not burn out a dragon.

Long after the flames died out, when the soldiers took out the dragon egg, the high-ranking officers of the Golden Company found that the gold and silver-intertwined dragon egg was even more beautiful.

"What is going on? Could it be that we overlooked some step?"

"I think it should be like the rumors say, let His Majesty enter the fire and become the Father of Dragons; only then can it be hatched."

"It is rumored that the condition for a dragon to be born requires pure Targaryen blood, could it be..."

The crowd discussed it heatedly; the failure to hatch the dragon was a significant blow to them.

Illyrio had already gone to Volantis to sell slaves, and Jon Connington had also left; the only one present who could preside over the big picture was Ha Li Strickland.

This Captain saw the officers and vice-captains beginning to doubt the identity of Aegon VI, so he shouted to steady the scene before explaining slowly:

"As you all know, Stannis has no shadow. I think it is precisely because of this flaw that our dragon-hatching ritual went wrong."

There was basically no one among them proficient in magic, so they could not explain why this happened.

Seeing everyone nod in approval, Ha Li continued: "But a life for a life is a method recognized by all gods. The Black Goat, the Red God, and the ancient gods of Valyria even allow believers to use fire sacrifices to exchange for blessings. Although priests call it a god's blessing, it is essentially an exchange."

The crowd continued to nod; although they did not know what the Captain meant, following what the majority did was the right thing to do.

"Stannis could not hatch it because he only has half a life left; the Lord of Light or other gods do not look favorably upon it, so they did not send down a miracle to hatch the magic dragon in the stone. But we have other choices. There are two people in Storm's End who also flow with king's blood, and they even have dragon blood in them, enough for us to carry out the next dragon hatching. Stannis's daughter always has a shadow; her life can certainly exchange for the life of a magic dragon."

Because he needed to stabilize the officers, Captain Ha Li's tone was very certain, but he had just stumbled upon the knack.

The key to Stannis being unable to hatch a dragon was that his life fire was insufficient.

Tristan Rivers, who had become a vice-captain, questioned: "How are we to take Storm's End? Back then, Stannis held off the six-month siege of the Reach's sixty-thousand-man army with a few hundred men. Do we have sixty thousand men?"

Quite a few people agreed with his point of view.

Ha Li was suddenly furious, "By your meaning, am I the same kind of fool as Mace Tyrell?"

Tristan Rivers hung his head sullenly and did not answer.

Having suppressed his new subordinates, Captain Ha Li then stated his own thoughts: "It is certainly impossible to take Storm's End from the outside, but the inside is much easier. In short, I have a complete plan. Once we have captured Shireen or whoever, we will hatch the dragon again."

A Faceless Man was currently in this troop; Ha Li had plenty of confidence.

In the time that followed, the Captain began to mobilize troops; a large number of soldiers would pause their slave-capturing operations and turn to besiege Storm's End instead.

Of course, Ha Li had not forgotten the most important thing.

"Quinn, Tristan, Otto, you take your men to protect the dragon egg and His Majesty Aegon VI."

He assigned two vice-captains and one high-ranking officer to protect the dragon egg.

In the next hour, the Golden Company's base camp began to fall into chaos; they had to move north quickly to besiege Storm's End, which was only a day or two's journey away.

……

Storm's End, Godswood.

A fire mixed with thick smoke shot into the sky; because of the burning, the human face on the Weirwood became twisted and looked very painful.

The released Melisandre was staring closely at the flames with Queen Selyse Florent, attempting to find some hint from the Lord of Light.

Axell Florent, who had a pair of bat ears, stood behind the two women, whispering with the Florent members beside him about the future situation.

The Onion Knight Davos Seaworth and Andrew Estermont and others were relatively far from both groups; anyway, it was the Old Gods' stuff being burned, and the followers of the Seven felt nothing.

What they were guarding against was Queen Selyse secretly ordering someone to let the red priestess go.

"The soldiers with the golden skull flagpoles burned a young girl and a youth to death..."

Melisandre whispered to Selyse, recounting the scene she saw.

Queen Selyse could only see a vague outline, and she was therefore even more in awe of the red priestess.

"Can you see anything else? Any hints for House Baratheon and House Florent?"

Selyse asked.

"Let me look again." Melisandre stared fixedly at the flames, hoping that the god she served could give more hints to a devout believer.

"I see it. A black-eyed king is running about under the feet of the gods. The Seven, the Drowned God, the Black Goat, the Night Lion, the Weeping Woman, and other gods have all been bled by him, but the gods are completely unaware."

In the flames, Melisandre discovered several famous gods, as well as more nameless gods; their commonality was that they were bleeding.

A black-eyed king whose body was shrouded in smoky gray fog was cutting the ankles of the gods to bleed them, just as the vulgar Maesters did.

"What sword is smoky gray? And which one is the black-eyed king?" Melisandre whispered to herself.

Selyse answered obsequiously: "The Valyrian Steel Sword is smoky gray, and the new master of King's Landing, the Dragonrider, has a pair of black eyes."

Melisandre stared at the strange scene in the flames, not knowing what the Lord of Light meant by letting her see this.

But she soon had her own judgment.

"It looks like Arthur Targaryen is the true king; I must go find him."

It is rumored that the Dragonrider recently obtained a Valyrian Steel Sword, and this matched most of the prophecy in the flames.

"What about us? What should these soldiers do?" Selyse had no decision, so she had to let the red priestess call the shots.

Not to mention that generals like Davos Seaworth would likely not let Melisandre leave very smoothly.

The red priestess turned her head to look at this foolish believer of the Lord of Light and whispered: "You can tell them the first prophecy, then let Davos Seaworth and Andrew Estermont take Shireen and Edric away to a safe city-state."

The Lord of Light's first prophecy was very clear; the Golden Company would soon come to capture these two children with king's blood.

"Since His Majesty Arthur is the true king, then I suggest that House Baratheon and House Florent also surrender to the Iron Throne; it just so happens that I can serve as an envoy to King's Landing."

Melisandre's intention was obvious; she wanted to go and assist the true king designated by the Red God.

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(End of chapter)